


Thinking In Circles

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Series: Short and Sweet (Fics of About 1000 Words or Less) [25]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Spoilers for Episode 48 of Campaign 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 03:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17459666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Why can't she see it'd be best if he left?Why can't he see it'd be best if he stayed?





	Thinking In Circles

**Author's Note:**

> This was the thing I was writing when SO MUCH HAPPENED AT ONCE FOREVER, so I"m posting this before moving on to whatever comes next. It's almost four in the morning. I have work at seven. This is fine.

Caleb screams his frustration into the bark of the tree, fingernails digging into the wood. Beau is intelligent, he knows this, but she’s stubborn too. She wasn’t listening to him, she doesn’t _understand._ Trent isn’t something like a manticore or a hydra, that can be brought down with a little bit of skill and luck, with swords and fists. Trent was powerful when Caleb was a young man. It’s been at least seventeen years since then, seventeen years of learning, of growing stronger while Caleb’s mind was broken, while Caleb was living in an asylum and then on the streets. How much Trent surely learned in that time. He could kill them with a word. He could dominate their minds and make them turn on each other. There are ways and ways and ways for his friends to die, doesn’t she see that? He needs to stay with these people. He _wants_ to stay with these people. But if they’re not careful, if Trent finds him through them, they will _die_ and it will be as much Caleb’s fault as his parent’s death was. He already has so much blood on his hands, he feels like he’s drowning in it.

Why can’t she see that it’d be best if he left?

****************

Beau seethes in her bedroll as she begrudgingly tries to go back to sleep. Fuck Caleb. _The problem with friends is that you have to care for them._ Really? You don’t care for people by walking away from them. Walking away is what you do when you don’t give a shit. Her own parents had taught her that. They had sent her away and Beau had doubled down and gone even further. Fuck them. She had an actual family now, one that she had risked everything for, that Molly had died in trying to bring back together, and she would be _damned_ if she let Caleb walk away from all that. There was safety to be found in allies, in knowledge, in _friends_. How Caleb doesn’t seem to get this is _infuriating_ to her. For all the books Caleb reads, for all his study, why doesn’t he understand? He can’t choose who cares about him, _for_ him, can’t change the fact that they’re willing to fight for him. He can’t walk away from that, she won’t let him. None of them will let him.

Why can’t he see it’d be best if he stayed?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending over on Tumblr if y'all want to come over and say hi!


End file.
